1. Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display.
2. Background
A liquid crystal display is a type of flat panel display that is currently widely used. A liquid crystal display typically includes two display panels including field generating electrodes, such as a pixel electrode and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer disposed therebetween.
The field generating electrode is supplied with a voltage to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal layer. The orientation of liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer is determined and polarization of incident light is controlled based on the generated electric field, thereby displaying an image.
Typically, the liquid crystal display further includes switching elements connected to each of the pixel electrodes and a plurality of signal lines. The signal lines may include such as gate lines and data lines, which control the switching elements to apply a voltage to the pixel electrodes.
A liquid crystal display having a vertically aligned mode in which the major axes of the liquid crystal molecules are aligned to be vertical to the display panel in the state in which an electric field is not applied has a large contrast ratio and a wide reference viewing angle, and therefore has received attention. “Reference viewing angle” means a viewing angle in which a contrast ratio is 1:10 or an inter-gray luminance inversion critical angle.
In a vertically aligned liquid crystal display, a method of dividing one pixel into two subpixels by applying a different voltage to each of the two subpixels so that each of the two subpixels has a different transmittance has been proposed. This configuration may improve side visibility of the display. However, in this configuration, luminance may be increased at a low gray or a high gray, such that it is difficult to represent a gray at the side, thereby causing the reduction in image quality.
Further, when the one pixel is divided into the two subpixels, the transmittance may be reduced by an interval between the two subpixels. Further still, the transmittance may be reduced due to an irregular behavior of liquid crystal molecules at an outer edge of the pixel electrode.
Therefore, a method of dividing one pixel area into three areas, including an area in which a first subpixel electrode is formed, an area in which the first subpixel electrode and a second subpixel electrode overlap each other, and an area in which the second subpixel electrode is formed has been proposed.
However, even when the one pixel area is divided into the three areas, the luminance may be increased at the low gray or the high gray, such that it is still difficult to represent the gray at the side.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.